Tuesday, July 8, 2014

NO FREE WILL?

Maybe
there’s no such thing as free will. What if every decision we think we make is actually
controlled by our genes? What if free will is an illusion?

I turned 68 last
week and that’s what I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been wondering how I got
where I am. About how anyone gets where they are. About how much control we
really have over any of it.

What if we
are where we are and we do what we do for reasons that are totally out of our conscious
control? Perhaps everything important about us has been predetermined by the
luck of the DNA we inherited. What if it’s all Darwinian fortune?

Are we
really so different from the rest of nature? Might human behavior be
genetically programmed as tightly as the instinctive acts of animals? Does a
bird, for instance, ever sit around contemplating which direction it should
head for the winter? Does the neighbor’s cat wake up and make a thoughtful decision
about whether to chase birds after breakfast or take a nap? All of nature is driven
by genetically-coded instincts and by learned behavior that also is delimited
by genes. How can it be that humans are free to control their own destinies? Are
we somehow unique in nature?

We have no
say in whether our genes made us smart or dim, with a skinny butt or fat one,
white skin or red, beautiful or ugly, tone deaf or prodigy, gay or straight.
Why should qualities of our character be any different – honest or dishonest,
disciplined or scattered, timid or adventurous, religious or atheist – those
features that define the essence of who we are and what kind of life we live?

I’ve somehow
managed to get from zero to 68. For most of my adult life I’ve considered
myself lucky – blessed with reasonably good health, better than average intelligence,
and the discipline to avoid having done anything dramatically stupid like going
to jail or to war. Well, except for maybe one or two things. In any event, now
that I’m living my ideal retirement, I’ve got to ask myself: What’d I do to
deserve this good fortune?

It certainly
wasn’t because me and God have been such good buddies; I can’t see how He would
do me any favors. Although I will admit that I’ve always been secretly grateful
for family and friends who tell me, “I’m praying for you.” My thinking is that
it can’t hurt, and maybe all those good vibes being sent into the vibisphere
are responsible. Who knows?

& & &

Fifty years
ago, my high school senior class voted me and my ex-girlfriend the two in our
graduating class most likely to succeed. I’m pretty sure I voted for myself,
although I couldn’t for the life of me have pictured how that success would play
out a half-century later.

The last
time I spoke with that ex-girlfriend, Karen, was 25 years ago during our 25th
reunion. I couldn’t attend but called the reunion in Michigan from a pay phone
in a little French restaurant in Las Vegas. I was living at the time in nearby
Bullhead City, Arizona, and working as a land developer. From the distant banquet,
several ex-classmates got on the line with me. Karen was the last and we
chatted for several minutes. Sadly, I neglected to ask her if she felt her life
had been “Success All the Way” like our yearbook predicted. Now I’ll never know
since she died last year.

Shit! She was about my age.

That’s the
thing. Once you pass 60, birthdays force you to think more than ever about
mortality and the meaning of life. Especially with all the people dying who are
no older than you.

Through
Facebook, I get regular notices of obituaries of former high school classmates.
The latest one was for a guy in the class a year ahead of me. I know nothing
about his life except this one thing I learned. He was 68 – my age – when he
died.

I looked up
his picture in our yearbook, but it didn’t ring a bell. Next to the guy’s
senior picture they had included this aphorism: “Heaven sent me down; Heaven
knows why.” Well, whatever Heaven’s intent may have been, I’ll bet the guy in
that Class of ’63 picture never thought he would die when he was only 68. Who
does?

Take actor Matthew
McConaughey’s father, who died in bed from a heart attack at the age of 64 –
while screwing Matthew’s mother. It probably wasn’t fair to his wife, but if
you got to go, I suppose you could do worse. (As Howard Stern noted, “He came
and went in the same breath.”) Still, 64 (“Will
you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”) no longer sounds
that old to me.

A few days
back I saw on Facebook that a friend had turned 74. She claims she no longer
thinks of anyone in their seventies as old. That’s encouraging. Because
recently I attended my grandson’s kindergarten graduation. When that kid
graduates from high school (class of ’26), I’ll be turning 80. Hopefully. If my
genes will let me.

& & &

The Apostle Paul said, “When I was a child, I
spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I
became a man, I put away childish things.” That’s how it’s supposed to work.
You graduate from kindergarten, grow up, and learn to act like an adult. For
most everyone, that means you have a job: You get up every day, you go to work,
you pay your bills. Everything else follows.

Some
otherwise normal people seem incapable of following such simple rules for life.
Can genes explain – and maybe justify – the drifters among us, those self-defined victims
floating through life without direction, waiting for their big break, the big
score?

If we really
have free will, how then can we explain self-destructive choices? Do any of us
really choose to become alcoholics, perennially unemployed, impulsive, or
obese? What is it that can make seemingly intelligent adults act like children?

External
circumstances, of course, can truly be out of one’s control – disease or war,
for example. But what about internal circumstances equally out of one’s control
– such as bipolar disorder, ADD, or depression? At what point on the mental
health scale do such genetic issues override free will? Always? Never?

How can such
people ever find a comfortable place in the world? How do any of us? Especially
if the invisible influence of genes on our behavior is what’s in control.

Could it be
that thinking we can change who we are by force of will is delusional? That
would mean that the assholes, morons, and criminals among us really can’t help
themselves. To say nothing of fat people.

Here is one
of the few points of agreement I have with religion: transcendental experience
– whether from conversion, meditation, or drugs – can change who people are. Yet
even there, perhaps our genes determine our compatibility to experience
out-of-body experiences of whatever ilk.

& & &

So why my
good fortune and my neighbor’s poor fortune? Is it something different that we
did? Or something different that we are? Was it preordained?

I’m guessing
that there are philosophers who spend much of their lives with my question: Is
there free will? Perhaps one of them, or an otherwise enlightened soul, will
read this and conclude: